A worker waits on the Raritan River Drawbridge for an inspection vehicle to pass Friday. / Larry Higgs/Staff photo

More

ADVERTISEMENT

ON THE RARITAN RIVER DRAWBRIDGE — The one-car inspection train crept across the storm-battered swing bridge at a speed close to a brisk walk. Work crews paused briefly from their labors on and inside the 80-year-old span to let it pass.

One test of some of the numerous repairs to the North Jersey Coast Line was passed, as the train reached land.

Throughout the ride Friday morning from Woodbridge to Aberdeen-Matawan, workers in lime green vests and white hardhats could be seen all along the Coast Line, getting NJ Transit’s most storm-damaged rail line ready for a planned Monday morning return to service.

NJ Transit officially announced late Friday that the Coast Line would return to service Monday morning — although, because of signal limitations, trip times will be five minutes longer.

Still remaining to be restored is the Gladstone Branch in Union and Somerset counties. Direct Coast Line service between Bay Head and Hoboken also remains suspended due to flooding damage still being repaired in Hoboken, Weinstein said.

But service along the lion’s share of the Coast Line, from New York to Bay Head, will be back and running on a close-to-normal schedule, he said.

The Coast Line’s tally from superstorm Sandy was 15 washouts – the most severe being a half-mile of track washed out near the storm-beaten Morgan drawbridge. There also were 150 downed trees on the Coast Line, 103 of them under electric wires. In addition, two miles of electric overhead catenary wire had been ripped down, said Michael Gaspartich, deputy general manager of infrastructure and engineering.

Weinstein had one word to describe what he saw after first touring NJ Transit’s system by helicopter to survey the storm damage: disbelief.

(Page 2 of 2)

“It is by far the worst storm New Jersey experienced in my lifetime and in the history of NJ Transit,” Weinstein said. “The amount of damage inflicted on the system is unprecedented.”

A total of 16 boats and two shipping containers were removed from the Coast Line, he said. One of two tugboats that hit the Raritan River Drawbridge remains sunk to the east of the span in 60 to 70 feet of water.

“They’re basically building a new railroad,” Transportation Commissioner James Simpson said.

The rails of this busy line are slowly having rust worn off by “rust buster” trains, which will be running all weekend to polish the rails that allow signals and railroad crossing lights and gates to operate properly.

Evidence of storm damage was all around the Coast Line tracks, such as shattered boats piled on either side of the Morgan Drawbridge, a derelict personal watercraft on an embankment below the tracks, new light gray ballast stones where tracks had washed out, and stacks of new, dark brown railroad ties.

Given the experience of Tropical Storm Irene — which knocked out service for six months on the Port Jervis Line, jointly run with Metro North, and on some of NJ Transit’s Bergen County lines — having close to 93 percent of the system back by Thanksgiving is an achievement for which Weinstein credits NJ Transit’s work force.

He admits, however, that he won’t relax until after the Monday morning rush is over.

Another important piece of infrastructure, a storm-flooded Amtrak electrical substation in Kearny, was back online shortly before 1 p.m. Friday, said Clifford Cole, Amtrak spokesman.

That substation will provide power for NJ Transit and Amtrak to run a full complement of trains to and from New York on the Northeast Corridor, which both the Coast Line and Morris and Essex lines feed into.

Bus shuttle service from Aberdeen-Matawan will end Monday, while shuttle buses from the PNC Bank Arts Center park-and-ride will continue.